Ruth Marcus: The sequester blame game

8:43 PM,
Feb. 21, 2013

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The blame game is a dreary and generally unproductive exercise. But as Washington slouches toward the self-inflicted wound of the budget sequester, Republicans' determined effort to rewrite the history of debt reduction requires correcting.

My short version of apportioning blame for the current mess is this: The Obama administration is guilty of bad negotiating in pursuit of sensible policy. Congressional Republicans are guilty of exploiting the president's bad negotiating in pursuit of terrible policy.

Let's quickly dispense with the sideshow of the sequester's parentage. It ...